AUSTRALIA'S car-makers are in the grip of an "absolutely frightening" industrial war that could soon result in Ford shopping offshore for steel and other key components, says the multinational manufacturer's president in Australia, Geoff Polites.

Mr Polites warned that yesterday's resolution of a strike at BHP Steel's Hastings plant in Victoria that threatened to bring the car industry to a halt did little to ease the threat to Australia's "credibility" as a secure place to make vehicles.

The Hastings strike was the third time in less than a year that a dispute had interrupted the lean supply chain to car-makers and threatened to force them to halt production.

Mr Polites described as "absolutely frightening" a threat by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union to routinely use industrial action in the renegotiation of up to 500 enterprise bargaining agreements at small component suppliers over the next 12 months.

BHP Steel president Col Weatherstone yesterday joined AMWU secretary Doug Cameron and vehicle manufacturers in calling for a national summit on the troubled industrial relations surrounding the car industry.

Meanwhile, Ford signalled to BHP Steel, its workers and the wider components industry that if strikes persisted over EBAs, the company would go shopping elsewhere for steel and other key components.

"We could go overseas right now – permanently," Mr Polites said of steel sourcing. "Every time one of these disputes happens, we look for alternatives overseas.

"I'm not saying we're going to, but the chances are we don't need to buy this steel in Australia any more. And if we move to buy it overseas it will never, ever, come back."

Mr Polites noted Ford Australia already had a long and favourable relationship with Nippon Steel in Japan.

The marginal cost of importing from Japan was "a hell of a lot less than losing a couple of days of production", he said.

Mr Polites also warned the renewal of hostilities in Australian industrial relations had sent a shiver through Ford headquarters in Detroit.

He said this week that Ford Motor Company vice-president Mark Schulz opened their weekly discussion with: "What's new in strike country?"

Mr Schulz, who is also president of Ford Asia-Pacific, has a particular interest in Australia and the long-term viability of Ford locally.

But while Ford and Holden have signalled they might go offshore for suppliers, Toyota and Mitsubishi remain reluctant to pursue that option.

Toyota spokesman Peter Griffin said the company would stand by its local suppliers. "Where possible, we'd actually like to increase local content," he said.

It is sad to hear that Ford is looking at using imported materials, but I can definitely see the reasoning behind it. The strikes that have been going on in recent years (transport, docks, manufacturing) are becoming ridiculous.

There are some genuine cases where workers' right have been breached, but in most cases it went something like this:

X: Bloody hell, there's no Mars bars in the vending machine!
Y: We don't need to take that crap!! Let's strike!
X: I reckon!

But currently, would it really matter to Ford if they had to stop production for a couple of days?
It will when the AV comes out, that I am sure of.
I remember I was doing Industrial relations at Uni when the big Waterfront strike was on. I still shiver to think how much a union can disrupt production in Australia.

i think there comes a time when the uion has to realise that they have gone to far, back in the l8 80's here in bendigo we had a big manufacturing plant here, there were some ppl that didn't think that they were gettin paid enough, they all went on strike, and all the people lost there jobs, there would have been about 200 ppl or more that were affected by this, they just dont seem to realise how big of an affect that there gonna have.

heh. I think that this is the time that the unions got a lesson that they arent the ones that run the show. Sure the workforce plays a vital role in getting things done, but they arent the be-all end-all. I think its time that the unions got their fingers out of the Labour party's pie, stopped holding big business to ransom, and got on with helping to build Australia as a player on the world stage.